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10 Ways to Have Peaceful, Loving Relationships

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“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.” ~Dalai Lama

Though Valentine’s Day is coming up next month, this is not a post about romance. It’s about any relationship—with your brother, your mother, your coworker, or your friend.

And I admit I am not an expert.

I’ve made a million and one mistakes in relationships. I’ve expected too much. Or not asked for what I needed in fear of rocking the boat. I’ve been competitive. I’ve been suspicious. I’ve been dependent. I’d like to think what redeems me from all these mistakes is that I’ve also …

Being Honest: The Difference Between Privacy and Secrecy

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“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” ~Ernest Hemingway

When I was a child I was part of a family that didn’t communicate beyond “pass the salt.”

There was no confiding of fears, sharing of hopes, and encouraging each other’s dreams. It was a superficial and empty existence but one that was completely normal to me.

Fast forward numerous years, add in three children and a loving partner of my own; now I try to create a childhood for my own kids that is a polar opposite to my own experience. …

Realizing Your Dream: Stop Dwelling on “What Ifs”

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“Excellence can be obtained if you care more than others think is wise, risk more than others think is safe, dream more than others think is practical, expect more than others think is possible.” ~Unknown

I think I always had an idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I sort of tweaked it along the way. I knew I wanted to work in the field of science, but like most kids, I wasn’t exactly sure where I fit in.

When I was 10 years old, I wanted to be an astronaut. At the age of …

Pushing Outside Our Comfort Zone: 3 Empowering Lessons

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“Our lives improve only when we take chances and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” ~Walter Anderson

I recently returned from four weeks of traveling by myself in Europe. No, I’m not bragging, although it was pretty awesome.

What made it amazing, besides the lovely scenery, tasty food, cultural experiences, and wine, was that I had a few great opportunities to re-visit some lessons that I think many of us could resonate with.

1. It is awesome to make decisions based on what supports our goals, not our fearful feelings.

Let …

Book Giveaway and Author Interview: 52-Week Life Passion Project

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Note: The winners for this giveaway have already been chosen. Subscribe to Tiny Buddha for free daily or weekly emails and to learn about future giveaways!

The Winners:

It’s not easy to do something you’re passionate about for work—and not only because it’s hard to discover your passion or find a job to leverage it.

Once we know what we love to do, we then need to work through all kinds of limiting thoughts, beliefs, and fears that may prevent us from taking action. Then we need to decide what that action should be—how …

Behind Great Anger Is Great Pain; Don’t Take It Personally

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“More important than the quest for certainty is the quest for clarity.” ~Francois Gautier

My husband was a gift I never expected to find. I never imagined that I deserved the kind of love that he was capable of giving me. With complete certainty, I felt safe in loving him and lucky to marry him.

We both had children from previous relationships, and, with high hopes, we entered into the balancing act of a blended family.

I had reasonable expectations that among the hard work there would be an unspoken respect for each other, and we’d slowly start …

Create Peace by Imagining a World Beyond It

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“We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.” ~Dalai Lama

What comes after peace? Have you ever stopped to think about this?

We spend so much of our time and energy working to attain both inner and global peace, but have we ever stopped to think about what this really means?

What is on the other side of peace?

Twice in my life, I have broken a board with my bare hand.

There is one simple rule to this technique. You must not focus on breaking the board but rather on breaking through …

28 Powerful Questions for a Happy Life

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“Keep your head clear. It doesn’t matter how bright the path is if your head is always cloudy.” ~Unknown

Have you ever noticed that your biggest “aha” moment comes from someone asking a powerful question? Suddenly everything seems to make a little more sense, and you know what you need to do from that point forward, right?

That’s exactly how it is for me. Someone will ask me a seemingly trivial question and bam! I’m suddenly overflowing with answers, emotions, solutions—I’m practically made of clarity!

I remember a friend of mine asking me over coffee one rainy afternoon …

A Creative Way to Judge Less and Appreciate Life More

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“Judgments prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.” ~Wayne Dyer

I am one of the millions of people in the world obsessed with photography. My camera is almost always with me, and when it isn’t, my trusty iPhone works pretty well.

But photography for me is much more than a fun hobby, and it is much more than taking pretty pictures that I can sell.

Photography helps me notice and appreciate my life.

I practice what is called a meditative or contemplative form of photography. It’s about being present and open to life as it is, without …

The Top 10 Tiny Buddha Insights from 2012

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Happy almost 2013!

It seems like just yesterday I wrote “Happy almost 2012!” before summarizing the top lessons from 2011.

I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, as I like to think that any moment is an ideal time to make a change, but I always appreciate looking back and recognizing progress and growth.

The site grew by leaps and bounds this year, surpassing two million monthly page views. However, what I’ve found most exciting is the increased interest in contributing to the blog.

Each month, I’ve received more submissions than the month before, but what inspires me …

New Year’s Tiny Wisdom Buy One Give One eBook Sale

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To celebrate the New Year, I decided to run a second Tiny Wisdom eBook sale (as I previously did on my birthday in August).

For today only, if you purchase the Tiny Wisdom eBook series (5 eBooks for $19.97), I will send a free set to a friend of your choice. (Weekly email subscribers, this offer is good for you today, Friday January 4th.)

All you need to do is:

  • Order your set (by scrolling all the way down and clicking on “buy now” for the full set)
  • Forward your confirmation email to me at email(AT)tinybuddha(DOT)com
  • Include your friend’s
…

Reframing Rejection: Getting Rejected Doesn’t Always Have to Hurt

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“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~Dalai Lama

When I entered college, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I was going to be an actuary, just like my sister.

Judy had just graduated, and she loved her job. My sister and I are very similar (both of us are math nerds, for example), so I knew I would love it too.

While my school didn’t have an Actuarial Science major or any formal preparation for the career, I was able to get ahead, passing the qualifying exams …

Tiny Buddha Book Holiday Giveaway, Week 4

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Update: The winners for this giveaway have already been chosen. Subscribe to Tiny Buddha for free daily or weekly emails and to learn about future giveaways!

The Winners:

To celebrate the holiday season, I’ve decided to do a series of giveaways for my book, Tiny Buddha: Simple Wisdom for Life’s Hard Questions, which launched right around this time last year.

If you’ve already learned about the book or purchased it, this post will be redundant for you! For those who haven’t read it, here’s a little information about it:

This is the first book of …

Becoming Friends With Yourself: You Deserve Your Love

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“You, yourself, as much as anyone in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~The Buddha

Bodhicitta. Metta. Loving-kindness. Compassion. Whatever you call it, this is what spiritual practice is all about, right? Long story short, the teachings instruct us to generate these vast motivations and wishes that all sentient beings be free from suffering and experience true and lasting happiness.

It sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?

So why is it that so many of us are still unhappy, even after years of sitting on the cushion? Why do we still struggle with depression, anxiety, fear, and even self-loathing?

Now, …

Finding Peace: Take Power Away from Your Thoughts and Emotions

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“Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you.” ~John De Paola

My almost three year old, Willow, is obsessed with playing doctor.

She lies on the couch, hands down at her sides. She hands me a small flashlight and a toy frying pan (which I’m told to pretend is a stethoscope) and orders, “Check me out, Doctor Mommy!”

She methodically points out every scratch, scrape, bruise, and freckle on her body. She tells me how much snot she feels in her nose and how many times she coughed, sneezed, and hiccupped that day so that …

Overcoming Anxiety: Moving from Fear to Presence

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“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” ~Nelson Mandela

When I was a trainee teacher at a Cambridge University, I attended one of the oldest, most sought-after colleges, where most of the other graduate students were astrophysicists and economists, and 90% male.

They also seemed to come from families that were in some way related to the Queen of England, whereas I was a young, pregnant, trainee high school teacher whose nearest connection to Queens was owning a Freddie Mercury single, and I was a little shy.

Formal college dinners were a …

6 Steps to Release Your Fear and Feel Peaceful

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“We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.” ~Mary Catherine Bateson

It was a balmy spring morning and I started my day as per usual, but I soon realized that my mind was entertaining fearful thoughts about my financial insecurity.

With many new ventures within the seedling stage, my income flow was erratic and unpredictable, while my financial responsibilities were consistent and guaranteed. At the time I ignored these thoughts as “petty,” like a parent dismissing a crying child after a mild fall on the pavement.

What I didn’t realize was that my mind wanted …

10 Powerful Gifts to Give and Receive Today

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“Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons.”  ~Ruth Ann Schabacker

Regardless of what holiday you celebrate, or how you honor it, there’s no denying this is an emotionally loaded time of year.

We either remind ourselves how grateful we are for all the people we love, or we remember how much it hurts that we don’t have people like that in our lives.

We either celebrate all our blessings, or we look toward the year to come, wondering if we’ll have more then.

You may find yourself reflecting on last Christmas in awe of how much …

35 Simple Ways to Be Beautiful

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“Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical.” ~Sophia Loren

Even though I got Joey McIntyre from The New Kids on the Block to sign my scoliosis back brace in the sixth grade, I still felt ugly wearing it.

I didn’t realize the irony back then, but in retrospect it seems a little funny that I grew crooked considering I convinced myself I was wilting in my sister’s shadow. (I also had braces and headgear, but that’s another story.)

I was a kid who wanted to be beautiful, but more desperately …

Being Grateful for the Imperfect Present

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“If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” ~Oprah Winfrey

I live in an old house.

It is 212 years old this year, to be exact.

We’ve added onto it over the years so it presents itself as more youthful than its age. The old bones remain, though, as well as many of the quirks. Those “quirks” give it character, right? It’s much like my emerging crow’s feet give my face character.

That’s the positive spin on crow’s feet, at least.

We have uneven floors, to the point where most of our furniture is …

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